Tools: Subsidiarity

I dread dealing with bureaucracies. They are huge, complex institutions that famously default to “NO.” (1) There are exceptions!

Whenever I am required to visit my county tag office, I make sure to tell the clerk at the window that this is the only government activity I approach with no dread. Courtesy, efficiency, facilitation – even cordiality. In a government office.

My interaction with state agencies is easy, too. (Georgia). We have a state-wide system of county and municipal libraries knit together by common software which enable me to search for a book and reserve it, from 300 branches under 51 regional systems. When the material is available it is received by my local branch, I get an email giving me a week to pick it up. My only complaint is with the system’s search engine, which is rigidly unforgiving and cries out for AI intervention. It often kicks back a “Not Found,” even if I know the book is there. Of course, my local librarians, (who are brilliant, by the way) are powerless to modify it.

The inflexibility of federal level institutions is legendary.

“The government is best which governs least.” (2)

Subsidiarity is the principle that decisions should be made at the lowest practical level in any institution. It was first enunciated by St. Thomas Aquinas, the famous scholastic, applying it to the church hierarchy. Some considerations:

1. Information obvious at the local level, becomes distorted, less understood, and less useful for decision making, the higher one goes up the chain.

2. Upper levels of institutions often find it convenient to over-ride institutional norms for the sake of benefit external to the organization.

3. The higher one goes, the more likely power is, to corrupt.

4. High levels in the institution are swamped with a million other things. They hardly have time to be thoughtful or swift to act. Meanwhile, the local guy knows just what is needed; he just isn't allowed to do it...

America has left democracy behind, as the power to act has been gradually been usurped – in effect, we live in a bureaucracy. The Constitution reserves to the states ALL authority EXCEPT the explicit (i.e. ‘Enumerated Powers’) granted to the federal government by specific inclusion in that document. Don't we wish that was enforced!

(1) My thanks to Jordan Peterson, who drew my attention to this subject in “We Who Wrestle with God,” Portfolio/Penguin, 2024. (Jethro advises Moses to empower subordinates to act for him).

(2) Jefferson, Thoreau, Locke...

5 May 2025